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| From the book Stanzas in the Manner of Alexander Pope | | (1979–1980) |  |
| Coda | The poet is he who wants that which everyone
wants to want. Like a squirrel in a wheel,
he spins his imaginable destiny.
But his style, high as a threshold,
leads away from the illuminated porch
into some trans-polar region without end,
where he keeps chirring from a spear’s point
like a grasshopper in the grass of non-existence.
And if we glance sideways in that direction,
the sound itself is arbitrary as a teardrop.
Gerald S. Smith
***
Poet want what others wish to want.
Like squirrels turning treadmills round and round
they turn the destiny imagination forged.
Their style, high as the threshold of a door,
leads inwards from a brightly lighted hall
to some unending place beyond the poles
where everything drops from a sabre’s edge
like grasshoppers from blades of nothingness.
Look sideways, as one looks at distant stars
and sound itself comes unprovoked as tears.
Catriona Kelly
***
The poet is one who wants what everyone
wants to want. Like a squirrel on a wheel,
he turns his imaginable fate.
But his high style is like a threshold
that leads away from an illuminated porch
in some boundless polar region
where everything twitters from the spear’s tip
like a grasshopper in the grass of oblivion.
And if we look aside at it, we’ll see
that the sound is as accidental as a tear.
Slava I. Yastremski and Michel Naydan
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